Arrived Pittsburg, Kansas: 12:35 A.M. (Next Day)
Total Hours On Road: 14 Hours 53 Minutes
Total Miles Traveled: 632Miles
Tornadoes: 00
Funnel Clouds: 00
Wall Clouds: 01
Hail: No
Flooding: No
A Moderate Risk of severe thunderstorms and a 10% hatched area for tornadoes over Central and Eastern Oklahoma caught my attention for today. My original target for today was Drumright, Oklahoma, or just west of Tulsa, Oklahoma. My plans changed with the future severe storm outlooks put out by the Storm Prediction Center.
The Storm Prediction Center kept pushing the best chances for tornadic storms to the South Central Oklahoma area along the dryline. The Storm Prediction Center had also issued a tornado watch over this area in the early afternoon. I met up with Joey Ketchum, Tyler Costantini, Chris Wilburn and Bart Comstock to the east of Oklahoma City along I-40 highway. They decided they were going to travel farther south of Oklahoma City to play the dryline. I decided to stay to the southeast of Oklahoma City where the dryline intersected a cold front.
This was one decision I'm glad I made. My fellow chasers farther south along the dryline came up empty with no storms firing in their area. Storms refused to form along the dryline, with the only storms in the area developing along the cold front to my north. These storms never really got there act together, with hail and wind being the main threat with them.
I did witness some lower level rotation with one of these storms near Cromwell, Oklahoma.
I received a cellphone call from the Tulsa National Weather Service office who saw that I was watching this storm via the Spotter Network. I advised them that there were signs of lower level rotation, but it did not last very long. The storm kept cycling quickly and never had time to stay organized. This storm became outflow dominant, and I didn't even get any decent photographs of a shelf cloud this time around.
I learned a few lessons from this storm chase. I learned that I'm ususally better off not changing my original target area midway through my chase. Funnel clouds and a tornado warned supercell storm developed about fifty miles northeast of my original target area. This storm moved within five miles of my home in Pittsburg, Kansas, with funnel clouds being its main threat. It still would have been better than what I saw after traveling over six hundred miles. Oh well, you live and learn. I did get to chase in a different area of Oklahoma, and I got to see some different Oklahoma terrain.
Russel Parsons
Pittsburg, Kansas
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